Leaving the End of the World.

Day 13: Saturday, January 11th, 2014
Steps taken: 6,066

At 7 I woke up, got cleaned up, finished packing, and went to the final breakfast.  It was a pleasant yet somber meal not only because there was no omelette bar, but for the fact that everyone's paths were diverging again.

After breakfast, we left the MS Expedition and said our goodbyes to the crew, and the passengers that weren't immediately going to the airport.  We walked around town for the next two hours, and then returned to the luggage station to head to the airport.

We arrived at the airport three hours before our flight was to leave, but it felt like double.  First there was some inane problem with my ticket that I had to go to a service counter to get my tickets from Buenos Aires to home.  We waited on line behind one person.  That person in front of us who wanted to upgrade his ticket took half an hour because of computers malfunctioning and confused staff.  Then the guy who told me to wait on the line told me not to bother and just get my tickets at the next airport.  THANKS!

We wandered a bit talking to some of the snack shop owners before heading to the gates.  We hung out with our fellow Expeditioners waiting for our plane.  We kept watching for our boarding announcement at the gate we were supposed to board from, but after thirty minutes from when the plane was to take off there was nothing.  I asked someone on a line forming near gate 3, and supposedly our plane was about to take off.  Our plane was changed to gate 5 without a change on the monitors or a serious announcement being made.  If it was made in Spanish I didn't hear out flight number.  Neither did Scott or Dan.  THANKS AGAIN!

We scrambled to the gate and were told the flight was waiting on us.  That was sooooo nice of them.  Ushuaia Airport, you're officially the worst airport in the world!  Congratulations, Newark, you're no longer #1.  We got on the plane and another passenger boarded a minute or two after us and then we took off immediately.

We arrived in Buenos Aires and had to play the waiting game...for six hours.  As you can see I love waiting in airports, but again the airport shuffle was the worst part of the trip.

In the meantime, we conversed with the Expeditioners that were there, had dinner, and walked around the airport.  The flight itself was okay.  At least we knew when and where it was boarding!